B Division Match - Island Pond - Sat 3rd March

For today's match the '3s' would be on the low numbers of the Island pond - and I drew P3, which is another i've not fished before. The pond is a full 16M wide on this peg, so I hoped to be able to find some fish at the bottom of the shelf at some point as my pole is quite difficult at full length.

But with all the bankside noise of a group of anglers setting up their gear, I decided to start by fishing at full distance on the far shelf.

After being pestered by small roach in last Sunday's match, I opted not to use micro pellets as an attractor, and instead had prepared enough 4mm pellets.

The all-in was called at 11 sharp and I shipped out with a 6mm pellet on a size 16 under one of John Perella's diamond floats, with 4 feed pellets in the pot, to a spot around a foot from the far bank.

Almost immediately, I got a typical F1 bite and landed a fish of just under pound, and on my second ship, I got an instant bite but didn't connect. And that sets a pattern for the next 2 hours - I managed to hit every 5/6th bite and land 8 carp, but had to re-bait frequently as the pellets were being eaten by, I suspected, small roach. Weather wise, it's wasn't cold, but somehow the wind blew from the left, and then from the right making presentation really tough. At around 13:00 the carp disappeared, not just for me, but the un-hitable bites continue and I eventually land a 1 oz roach using a 6MM pellet on a size 14 (which I changed to to help keep the pellet on the hook).

Over the next 2 hours, I tried, pellet, maggot and corn at various points from the near margin trough the middle and back to the far side, but like those around me, I struggled.

But as is often the case, after 15:00 the positive bites once again return and I managed another 4 carp to finish up with 10lbs - 11oz, which put me 4th in the section.

My biggest issue today was that I lost 3 good fish due to getting my main line entangled with my feed pot thus stopping the elastic from deploying, so I've decided to convert all of my top kits to use a dacron connector, which should stop this happening.

Next weekend is the first of a double header between Magiscroft AC and Orchill AC, with the first leg taking place at the 'Croft. I hope to get picked for the match!

But I'll be back out on Wednesday, when i will try something a bit different.

Full results from the B Deivision Match can be found here.